How To:

Knoctur_nal · Nov 26, 2007

The How To Series.

How to Hide a Shared Folder in Windows XP Home

Here's the scoop—you have several computers in your home that are all networked together and share the same internet connection and you want to prevent other users on the network from accessing your data. In Windows 98 you were, at least, able to assign network passwords, but in Windows XP Home, you can't even do that. XP Home uses Simple File Sharing, which is basically an all or nothing situation—share all or share nothing. It offers practically no security options like the Windows XP Pro version does. However, there is a simple little trick you can use that will hide your shared folder from other computers on your network.

Here's how easy it is:

* Right click the folder or disk you want to be secured and choose Sharing and Security.

* Enter a share name for your folder or drive and place a dollar sign ($) at the end of the name, i.e., MyPixx$ The name can be up to 12 characters long (including the dollar sign).

That's it!

That folder is now hidden and won't be visible by any other user on your network, nor will it appear in My Network Places or Network Neighborhood. Only by knowing the name of the folder can others access it, so make sure you choose a difficult name to guess if others trying to access it is an issue with you.

Now you might be wondering, if no one can see it, how can it be accessed? The answer to that is by mapping it as a network drive.

Here's how to do that:

* Double click My Computer and go to Tools/Map Network Drive.

* Choose an available drive letter and type the path for your hidden folder (with the dollar sign included).

* Put a checkmark next to Reconnect at Logon, which will automatically map your hidden share every time you boot up

Image of the Map Network Drive dialog box with a sample drive mapped as hidden.

* Click Finish

Note! If you choose not to reconnect at logon, you will have to manually re-map your share after every reboot.

You now have a drive letter which allows you to access your hidden share just as if it was another disk. You will see it in My Computer and only on your computer. To make it visible on other user accounts, you would have to map a network drive to your folder on those computers as well.
Click to expand...

Source: pubs.logicalexpressions.com

How To:

Knoctur_nal |Force 10 from Navarone|